Två vandringar och en utställning

Om trovärdiga skildringar av David Bowie i Berlin

Abstract

This article discusses how credibility is manifested through three representations of David Bowie’s time in Berlin during the late seventies. These representations are two guided tours and one exhibition. The first tour visited Hansa-Studio where Bowie recorded and produced some of his most famous records. The second was a walking tour to Bowies Berlin. To this is added a touring exhibition, David Bowie is, curated by Victoria and Albert in London and shown in Berlin during 2014. The analytic starting-point for the interpretations of the representations is a model consisting of three concepts; fragments, affective alliances and retrologies. The article shows how the three settings nurture different kinds of credibility. The visit to the Hansa studio weighs heavily on a technician who accomplished the tour. He had worked with David Bowie in the studio during the seventies and shared his memories and recollections from the time. The walking tour was more of a general tourist tour, catering for the Bowie fan. It showed places important in Bowie’s career emphasizing the relation between Bowie and Berlin. Here credibility lies in the guide’s expertise on the city and his detailed knowledge on Bowie. The exhibition was made in relation to The David Bowie Archive. This was a starting point for credibility, underlined by the museums aesthetic praxis’s. The different way that credibility was performed could be summed up as differences in relating to David Bowie. The two tried in different ways to mark their relations to Bowie, while the exhibition tried to distance themselves from the artist.